Prosecutor makes surprise offer in Vatican fraud trial

By NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A prosecutor for the Vatican has offered Tuesday to essentially restart his fraud and corruption investigation into the Holy See’s 350 million-euro investment in a London property to remedy procedural problems. Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi on Tuesday made the surprise offer to take back all the evidence and to re-question the suspects. Lawyers for the 10 defendants have accused Diddi’s office of withholding key pieces of evidence from them and not interrogating suspects during the investigative phase about all the accusations that ended up in the indictment. They maintain those and other alleged procedural errors should get the entire indictment thrown out. A three-judge tribunal plans to rule on Diddi’s offer to pause the trial.